Dubai American Scientific School

PRINCIPAL’S MESSAGE: UPDATE FOR WEBSITE 6 December 2011

Our National Day celebration event held in school last Wednesday (30^th. November) demonstrated how the “Spirit of the Union” is alive and guiding us all at DASS.  The celebration included students in national dress performing dances, singing songs, reading poetry, reciting from the Holy Qur’an, and there was also a parade by the students in our KG section.  Well over 300 people packed the gymnasium to witness this program and there was an excellent feast of food and drink for students, parents and staff to enjoy after the event.  A visitor to DASS from the UK commented that this was ‘the very best school event that I have ever seen”. My thanks must go to all the students who took part, to the Arabic staff who did most of the organizing and to the many parents who not only attended but also brought in food for people to taste.  This was a great occasion which demonstrated that at DASS we really do enable the whole community to reflect upon and recognize the wider context in which we all live.

As we approach the winter break can I ask that all parents continue to support us by ensuring that their child(ren) attends school regularly and on time, and that they always wear their uniform with pride. Thank you to those parents who have always done so, it is much appreciated.

On a similar wider context theme, many of our students are taking part in the EEG ‘Clean up the UAE’ scheme on 12^th December. This event is being coordinated by Ms Masoumeh and will involve DASS students actively helping to clean up part of Dubai. Ms Masoumeh will report upon this at a later date.

On a very serious note I am becoming increasingly concerned about the misuse of mobile phones within (and outside of) school which has led to problems developing between students.  At the moment our policy is that mobile phones are never to be seen or heard in classrooms during lessons or else the student risks having the phone confiscated.  However we do not have a total ban on students having phones in their possession because many parents actually want their child to carry a mobile phone so that they are able to contact them after school, in case of any emergency or change to travel arrangements etc.  However I would like to hear parents’ views about whether or not we should ban all mobile phones completely and will be including this as part of a parental survey that we shall be conducting over the next few weeks.

I am very pleased to say that we are now almost fully staffed and have welcomed new colleagues over the past few weeks – there is now no class that does not have a teacher.  The only ‘gap’ is that we still intend to split the very big Grade 3 class into two classes and will do so as soon as we have appointed a quality candidate to teach the second group.

My very best wishes to everybody at this time

Mr Tim

Principal (DASS)